Rent-a-boyfriend
by 2kaon
Summary: [AU] Why was "married to my job" not a valid status of relationship?
1. Chapter 1

A/N (Oct 2017): Revised it a little, cuz you guys deserve something better than a fanfic written half asleep.

 **Chapter 1**

* * *

Why. Why did she let Akari talk her into this?

Okuda Manami, a 27-year-old single workaholic, is currently sitting alone and fiddling with her third cup of Americano in a local busy café. She can't stop looking at her watch and around trying to find that person she is supposed to meet: the one that Akari had very helpfully described as "a tall, cute guy". On top of that, she is provided with no pictures at all, not even a description because Akari wants to keep it a surprise.

Why ever would she do that?

Considering that approximately 150 or so people have come and gone in the past hour she spent waiting, there are more than a dozen tall, cute (in Akari's standard she would guess) guys. Simply said, she doesn't know how to spot this guy at all.

Besides, all the coffee is making her more and more jittery.

She gives her watch a final glance and sighs. Maybe she is being stood up. Oh well. It's better since this is less awkward than having to actually explain her situation to a complete stranger.

Now all she has to do is to face the music on her own, which she probably should have done from the beginning.

She heaves another sigh and finishes her now lukewarm coffee in her plastic cup. She is just about to leave when someone walks over to her table and stops right in front of her.

A little surprised, she looks up and sees a tall red-haired male in a dark grey suit across from her.

His hair is swept to the side, but it interestingly still looks slightly messy with the effort he seems to have put. Although, it still looks good on him, she has to admit. She can see the 'cute' that Akari mentioned.

The man starts, "Okuda Manami-san?"

With that she stops gaping and jumps back to reality before quickly standing up to meet him. He is really tall, the top of her head barely reaches his shoulder. "Y-Yes! You must be Akari's friend."

"Yeah. I guess you could say that." He flashes a smile, "I'm Akabane Karma."

He offers his hand to her and she shakes it, noticing how professional the handshake was. She could see why.

"Sorry I was a little late. I got caught up in an emergency meeting last minute."

One hour. Charming.

"Oh… don't worry about that. Please have a seat!"

Manami places her bag back down and sits back to her seat.

"Let's cut to the chase. After all, I've been extremely late with our appointment to begin with." Karma says.

Manami nods in agreement, mentally listing down everything she could be doing instead of wasting her time for this.

"I've been briefed a little about your situation," there's a mysterious glint in his champagne coloured eyes. He laces his fingers and places it on the table, slightly leaning forward in interest before continuing, "However, I'd like to hear the details from you yourself. If you don't mind."

She knew it'll come to this. She almost bolts right out of the café. This is still a bit too embarrassing for her to explain. But she remembers how Akari had gone far enough to ask her friend to help her out, and so she might as well give it a shot.

Taking a deep breath while trying her best to calm the burning heat she felt on both her cheeks, ears, and many places else, she says, "W-Well… M-My parents… they are worried about me…"

The man in front of her just nods along, encouraging her to continue.

"All simply because I don't have a-a… a," she fiddles with the end of her braids, eyes completely avoiding Karma, "b-boyf-boyfriend." She finishes. "Never even once." She adds almost inaudibly, repeating her mother's words like she overheard in a conversation with her friends, commenting about Manami's love life.

Why is "married to my job" not a valid status of relationship?

She sneaks a peek at the man across her to find an incomprehensible gaze, as if he's mentally measuring her and calculating about something. Noticing her looking, he smiles, there's an almost boyish charm in the smile. "I see. What do you need me for?"

"I-I…," she gulps and starts to regret not getting her fourth coffee before this stressful encounter. "I want you to…" she closes her eyes and continues quietly and quickly, "bemypretendboyfriend."

Karma almost grins, but keeps his cool. He's not letting her get away painlessly. "I'm sorry I didn't quite catch the last part. What do you want me to be?"

Manami takes another deep breath, with cheeks as red as a boiled crab, she squeezes her eyes tighter and says in a slow and clear but shaky voice. "Please be my boyfriend, Akabane-san."

At this point Karma is already biting his lips to prevent bursting out in a fit of laughter. _Ah this is going to be fun._

"Hmm… I don't know about that, Okuda-san. Shouldn't we get to know each other better first?"

What? Manami opens her eyes to look at the man in front of her, not believing what she just heard. Was she… rejected for her first ever confession in her life? And by this complete stranger she didn't even know, let alone have feelings for? Was this a joke?

Her vision started to blur as pools of tears started to form on the corner of her eyes. She blinks hard in order to stop the tears of embarrassment to spill out.

Karma, realizing that he might have gone a bit too far, quickly adds, "Relax, Okuda-san. I was merely joking. Sure. I'll be your boyfriend."

When the petite girl visibly relaxes, Karma lets out an inner sigh of relief. He is _mischievous_ , not _mean_. He will never make an innocent girl like her cry for no reason at all.

"T-Thank you, Akabane-san. It means the world to me."

"Don't worry about it, and call me Karma."

The girl smiles at him. He does notice that even though she didn't cry, her eyes still looked puffy with those thick eye bags behind her old-fashioned silver-rimmed oval glasses.

"I'm still very thankful about this, Karma-san," she starts shuffling through her messenger bag and produces a paper and a pen from it. Karma looks at her items curiously, wondering what those are for. Looking back at him, she says, "Alright. Let's talk about payment."

Now that caught him off-guard. He chuckles, "What?"

The girl in front of him just stares back at him with an owlish look, as confused as he is.

"Are you under the impression that I make a living out of this, Okuda-san?"

"You…don't?"

"What makes you think that?"

"U-Um…well, Akari told me that you're a pro at this…so…"

That sneaky little-

Karma sighs. You know what? Screw it. If he's going to be entertained and getting paid for it, why not? But let's make it even more amusing, shall we?

"Alright."

Manami mentally goes through her budget for this and is pretty prepared to negotiate in case he quotes prices that she can't afford.

"But I won't accept money as payment."

Okay, she wasn't prepared for that.

"Th-Then what is your proposed payment form?"

"Hmm… favours."

…what?

"Yes. I want you to pay me in 'favours'."

Sounds…novel and risky. She is so torn about this. On one hand, she is glad she could save money but on the other, she is afraid of getting pulled into something strange. What if he asked her to assist him to kill someone? Akari wouldn't introduce her to someone evil, would she?

Would she?

Seeing the girl in front of him facing her own inner battles, he adds, "One favour per month. Nothing (too) illegal. Plus, you have a veto say every month."

She mulls over it a little and finally decides, "Alright. I accept."

She looks at him with such determination that he couldn't help but tease her, "Including sexual favours?"

W-W-Wait! How could she not think of that? Overwhelmed with the sudden attack, she quickly stammers out, "V-V-VETO!"

Karma lets out a hearty laughter, she really does give the most interesting responses, "I'm only joking, Okuda-san. I'm not going to (always) make you do things you don't want to."

All she could do now is to stare at the mischievous devil in front of her. Could her poor heart endure this torment? Is it too late to back out of their agreement?

Karma, still grinning at her, decides to divert her attention to calm her down, "Oh, before I forgot. We're not signing anything for this, are we?"

That does the work, she looks less distressed now. After short pause, Manami replies, "No. not if you don't want to."

"Good. I don't want to sign anything."

"Understood." Manami rakes through her mind for other important things she needs to mention before wrapping the meeting up. "Now let's talk about the length of our proposition." She says as she adjusts her crooked glasses back to her nose bridge. "I propose for at least half a year and at most a year. That would be enough to convince my parents for a while."

Karma shrugs, "Sounds good to me."

Manami looks at her watch again and panics as she realises that her lunch break had been over by 15 minutes. "Sorry to cut this short, Karma-kun. I really have somewhere I need to be now. Can we discuss the details later?"

"Sure. Let's exchange numbers and set up another meeting."

She shuffles through her messenger bag once more and takes out a business card. "Pleasure doing business with you, Karma-kun. I hope to see you soon."

The petite girl hurriedly scuttles off without waiting for his answer.

"Likewise, Okuda-san." Karma replies meaningfully to himself while he reads her business card.

 **Okuda Manami**  
 _Senior Chemistry Engineer, Asano Chems_

This would be interesting indeed.

* * *

A/N: I can't sleep yesterday so I spent my time writing this down until I accidentally fell asleep while ignoring a phone call. I don't know where this is going though since I haven't really thought this through. Might continue this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

First impression of Okuda Manami: invisible.

He has been staring at the seat in front of him for 10 minutes now and he still couldn't see her. Interestingly her medical records fail to mention that she has the invisibility syndrome.

He taps his fingers impatiently on the glossy oak table with each passing moment he has wasted waiting.

Everyone knows Asano Gakushuu doesn't like to wait.

He almost decides to fire her.

However, judging from her resume and her historical performances, he must admit that she seems like a sufficiently remarkable employee. So he decides that he has to meet her at least once to objectively judge.

And it's not looking very good for her case.

He didn't plan to have his first day here like this. Hell he didn't even want to be here in the first place.

He fully understands the reason his father assigns him here. The business in this subsidiary has reached its maturity stages and will probably be axed or sold off in a couple of years. But honestly, he's a born hunter and not a castle defender. So he'd rather be out and about to seek for new business opportunities than stay in one place trying to develop an already developed business.

And yet, Gakushuu is not one to back off from a challenge, let alone one from his father. After all he has sworn that he'll seize the throne for himself one day. He could easily take the other path and join the other conglomerates and defeat his father that way, but then again he'd much rather see his father's face when Gakushuu manages to overthrow him from his own throne.

The sudden knocks on the door disturb his trail of thoughts.

This had better be Okuda Manami.

"Come in."

The door opens and a dark-haired meek female walks in.

"S-Sorry I'm late, Asano-san."

Gakushuu just lifts his eyebrow and stares at her. There it goes, just because Asano is a part of his name, it doesn't mean he likes to be called with it.

With him simply staring at her, he could guess that she thought he was waiting for an explanation because she is clearly fidgeting and seems to be thinking hard on the excuse she could use to convince her new boss.

The sadist side of him is very tempted to stay silent and watch her as she melts in panic under his stare.

"Asano-san…um I-"

But the rational side of him suggests otherwise though, not wanting to waste any more time. He has other more important things to tend to. So he simply lifts his hand to stop her from giving excuses.

"…I'm really sorry, Asano-san." The girl in front of him bows deeply and apologetically in embarrassment.

That earns Gakushuu a twitch of annoyance. That name reminds him too much of a certain pain in the ass. He typically doesn't really care when others address him as such, but in the span of 3 minutes she has already addressed him with 'Asano-san' three times. Furthermore, he realizes that he's going to deal with this girl closely, so he'd rather not.

"Pardon me, Okuda-san, but I'll appreciate it if you could call me Gakushuu."

Manami is taken aback by this. How can she call someone whose father is as powerful as Asano Gakuhou by his first name? So she fearfully denies, "I-I'm sorry, Asano-san, I'm afraid that'd be too disrespectful of me to address you by your first name."

That's the fourth 'Asano-san' coming out from her mouth in the past 3 and a half minute.

Gakushuu is not used to having his orders denied. He tilts his head and sighs in annoyance as he tries to remind himself that it's not good to lose his cool over something as menial as this.

"Then how about this, I'll address you with your first name too." He pauses to squint at her name badge, "…Manami-san. Will that be fair enough for you?" he speaks with sarcasm thickly laced into the last two words.

Manami might be dense back then, but over the time she has learnt to pick up on the subtle demeanor and quickly realized that she had better agree with whatever he says. So under his annoyed glare she chokes out, "Y-Y-Yes sir!"

Not commenting on the subject further, he shifts his gaze back to the proposal currently held on his hand and starts skimming through it.

"Now tell me about your proposal."

There's a glint in Manami's eyes as she starts to enthusiastically introduce the ideas and research that her team and her had done.

After she finished her short yet concise 5 minutes of introduction, the nervousness starts kicking in and Manami waits anxiously for her new boss' reaction.

"I could see why you're proposing for this, Manami-san." He leans forward and rests his elbows on the desk, resting his chin on the knuckles of his laced fingers, "But explain to me this: How is this going to profit the company? The materials you listed in your proposal aren't cheap at all. How much do you reckon we could sell the product for?"

She knows that she's working for a company and not a non-profit organization so this is to be expected. And yet, she still can't get used to this kind of profit-driven view. Surely there's more to life than valuing things monetarily.

"Not only that, if we were to launch this product, have you decided the target market?"

Manami feels annoyed. The man in front of her might not have said it out loud but she can sense that he is looking down at her. He doesn't believe in her.

"With all due respect, Gakushuu-san, my team worked hard on this. We had spent hours and hours on market research and we believed that this field is barely touched on yet which alone would mean there'll be minimal competition. After taking into considerations of many variables, we had also come up with what we believe to be the most efficient procedure of this project, cost-wisely speaking as well. Not only that, we had done multiple rechecking to ensure the calculations are as accurate as possible to minimise the margin of error therefore decreasing the possibilities of wasting resources. I would appreciate it if you would reconsider our proposal."

Gakushuu is an opportunist. Objectively, he's very good at seeing talent in people, and even better at allocating said talent in the right places. This girl definitely has the talent. And passion. Which is always the best kind of fuel.

Satisfied with her defensive argument, he leans back on his chair and says, "Alright. I will give you a chance."

Manami could barely hold herself back from jumping up and down in excitement after hearing that.

"I want your team to start by preparing a more detailed budgeting and timeline schedule. And then submit it to the finance department and have them work out on projections. I want it to be done by the end of this week."

"Yes Asa- I mean Gakushuu-san! Thank you! I will not disappoint you!"

Gakushuu just hummed in response, "Okay, you may leave now."

Manami gets up clumsily in excitement, almost knocking down her chair in the process. She quickly excuses herself before she actually bursts out in excitement in front of her boss.

Many years ago, Manami had believed that she didn't need to articulate her thoughts and let the numbers and results of her work do the talking. However, one teacher changed her way of thinking and taught her the importance of expressing herself through words. She is forever thankful for that teacher. Now she can even make her point go through her boss!

As she walks merrily back to her own department, her phone starts to vibrate. She takes it out of her pocket and answers it.

"Hello mom? I have good news! My boss accepted my proposal!"

A soft laughter resonates through her phone, _"You kids nowadays sure act fast don't you? Accepting a marriage proposal on your first meeting? That's refreshing!"_

"Mom..."

 _"Alright, alright I'll stop. Your father and I are glad that you're doing well at your job, but we'll be thrilled if you have someone who could be with you through the ups and downs, you know?"_

Manami knows that her parents are just looking out for her, "I know..."

Her mother heaves a soft sigh on the other line before continuing, _"Anyway, don't forget about our family dinner this Sunday, alright?"_

"I won't. I'll be there, mom."

 _"Good. Are you eating well nowadays?"_

"Yes I am, mom. Don't worry about me." Not realising it, she has reached her office. "Mom, I've got to go now. I'll see you this Sunday."

With that she ends her phonecall. Manami lets out her sigh and starts rummaging through her bag. After a short while, she pulls out a business card and starts dialling the number on the card.

Three rings later, the opposite party picks up.

"Hello, is this Akabane Karma-san? This is Okuda Manami, the one from the cafe earlier. I'm wondering if we could meet tonight?"

* * *

A/N: Sorry that I have to be vague about Manami's work because I have limited access on the information of the job and google research could only net me this much information... Thanks for all the feedback! (Psst...I made a minor revision on 1st chapter, give it a re-read if you'd like to!)


End file.
